Abstract

FUSION IMAGING IN HEAD AND NECK - DENTISTS’ PERSPECTIVE

Dr. Saraswathi Gopal K. MDS* and Dr. A. Vani Anusha

ABSTRACT

Molecular imaging is an essential component of the clinical decision-making tree. With the advent of newer and multimodality imaging techniques, the existent medical imaging technologies represent the leading component of health care institution and have a pivotal role in the daily clinical management of patients. Both functional and anatomical information are essential in state-of-the-art patient management. An appreciation for this type of combined information is best illustrated with the introduction of the term ―anato-metabolic imaging‖. Film radiography, diagnostic ultrasonography, Computed Tomog-raphy (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) are commonly used morphologic imaging techniques, which mainly require a macroscopic anatomic change for information to be recorded by an image receptor. However, in some human diseases abnormal biochemical processes either occur without any evident anatomic change or occur prior to it. Nuclear imaging provides an avenue to the radiologist to assess such physiologic/biochemical changes and also assists in differentiating between metabolically dying or deceased cells and those which are actively metabolizing. The realization that the information provided by anatomic (CT and MR) and molecular/ nuclear imaging modalities is complementary spurred the development of various strategies for multimodality image registration and fusion. Correlative or fusion functional-anatomic imaging is now well established and its clinical value widely recognized in various fields of medicine and in particular the discipline of oncology. The current article aims at delivering a keynote on available hybrid imaging techniques and their contemporary applications in various disciplines of medicine and oromaxillofacial imaging.

Keywords: Hybrid Imaging, Fusion Imaging, Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Single Photon Emission Tomography (SPECT), Head And Neck Oncology, Non Neoplastic Fusion Imaging.